Physics. [f. L. torquēre to twist.] The twisting or rotary force in a piece of mechanism (as a measurable quantity); the moment of a system of forces producing rotation.
1884. (Apr.) Jas. Thomson, in Sci. Papers (1912), p. civ.
1884. S. P. Thompson, Dynamo-electric Mach., xvii. 308. The torque or turning-moment is, in a series dynamo, both when used as a generator and when used as a motor, very nearly proportional to the current.
1906. Daily Chron., 21 April, 3/7. Torque is the amount of force in a rotary direction—the power of the twist. If you hold one end of a rod and I hold the other, and I twist it round in your hands, that is because I am giving it a torque greater than you can resist.
1907. Installation News, Oct., 9/1. This small boss takes up the torque due to screwing up the tube.
b. A proposed unit of this: see quot.
1899. Jude, Physics, Exper. & Theor., I. I. i. § 46. 33. In the French system, the absolute unit of moment would be the moment of a force of one dyne, about a point at one centimetre perpendicular distance from its line of action; this unit we shall call one torque.
c. attrib. and Comb.
1907. Westm. Gaz., 9 Nov., 16/2. The propeller shaft casing … fitted with a massive hinged bracket to form its own torque rod. Ibid. (1909), 30 Nov., 5/1. Intended as a torque-increasing mechanism to propel motor-cars within reasonable limits without the intervention of change-speed gears.
